This does not show the discrepency betwen first world and third world consumption.In terms of consumption, the wealthy countries of North America and Europe are eating up the world's resources at a much faster rate than thirld world countries. Overpopulation is also a factor and must be addressed in third world countries, as much as over consumption must be tackled in the first world.

Nice article .... but we have already been there. Let's move on ...

Education ..... in the underdeveloped worlds, must be afforded to women and women must be given other opportunities as well. In leveling the playing field between genders in less develoed nations, which means moving away from tradition, we will see a reduction in birth rate. This is where social justice comes into play. Social justice is eco justice.

Continiung to lament over-population as the main culprit is barking up one side of the tree. It is a willful ignorance of the actuality which is, simply, overconsumption, mostly by the western nations.

"Greek historian Herodotus wrote 2,500 years ago, “Man stalks across the landscape, and deserts follow in his footsteps.” Indeed, even Plato saw the impact of man upon the land. Much later, Abraham Lincoln’s ambassador to Italy and Turkey reported similar environmental destruction and scalped landscapes. Even President Nixon acknowledged the challenge of curtailing population growth."Here, sponge, if you didn't see it before; http://www.independent.co.uk/environmen ... 06484.html

_________________"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

One big problem with nearly all the ecological and carbon footprint sites is that they totally forget the multiplier of amount of children. From page two; "Research from Murtaugh and Schlax at Oregon State University shows that a hypothetical American woman who switches to a more fuel-efficient car, drives less, recycles, installs more efficient light bulbs, and replaces her refrigerator and windows with energy-saving models, would increase her carbon legacy by 40 times if she has two children." It goes up geometrically, too.

I think the purpose of the footprint is not to set aside the issue of population but to show how a middle class lifestyle contributes to resource consumption.

For example, the U.S. has less than 5 pct of the world's population but has to consume up to 25 pct of world oil production to support a middle class lifestyle. Similar numbers can be seen in various countries.

This does not show the discrepency betwen first world and third world consumption.In terms of consumption, the wealthy countries of North America and Europe are eating up the world's resources at a much faster rate than thirld world countries. Overpopulation is also a factor and must be addressed in third world countries, as much as over consumption must be tackled in the first world.

Nice article .... but we have already been there. Let's move on ...

Education ..... in the underdeveloped worlds, must be afforded to women and women must be given other opportunities as well. In leveling the playing field between genders in less develoed nations, which means moving away from tradition, we will see a reduction in birth rate. This is where social justice comes into play. Social justice is eco justice.

Continiung to lament over-population as the main culprit is barking up one side of the tree. It is a willful ignorance of the actuality which is, simply, overconsumption, mostly by the western nations.

The first world, moving away from the tradition of

Your second paragraph contradicts your first.

The claim isn't that overpopulation isn't a factor. It's that lower birth rates are usually achieved through greater prosperity, but that in turn leads to more resource consumption.

Your two last paragraphs actually support my point but contradict the first two paragraphs of your message.

Greater prosperity is from less people and more education/learned skills. More education, in ecology and overpopulation, can lead to lower consumption from moral individuals. Lower per capita consumption can also be achieved by increasing poverty which is caused by too many people leading to lower wages and higher prices from demands. The USA is going toward greater poverty as China is increasing per capita consumption and India is increasing prosperity and people, so consumption is increasing. It is unfortunate that the USA is on a bubble of 16.3 trillion dollars of debt, with 23 million Americans out of work, stagnated wages, and still more people coming in. Foolish government policies dictated by corporate and special interest sponsors. There are very few places on Earth that are not over carrying capacity for humans at even a poor standard of living. Most are grossly overpopulated, and even cutting per capita consumption is not enough to prevent it happening by nature, the hard way. Consumption is going up the same or a little more than population in a world of 7.1 billion that can only support, long term, 500 to 900 million (depending on standard of living, or consumption). This amount is in decline with depletion of resources and pollution of the environment.It is next to impossible to even force people to have less kids or lower their living standard. The only force that will do both is nature, from inability of the biosphere to feed and water more than around 3-4 billion by 2050. Even that still leads to further environmental depletion and pollution, because by then the long term sustainable level will be 200 million. The way things are going, the planet will be uninhabitable for most life in a thousand years or so, and stay that way for a very long time.

_________________"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

This does not show the discrepency betwen first world and third world consumption.In terms of consumption, the wealthy countries of North America and Europe are eating up the world's resources at a much faster rate than thirld world countries. Overpopulation is also a factor and must be addressed in third world countries, as much as over consumption must be tackled in the first world.

Nice article .... but we have already been there. Let's move on ...

Education ..... in the underdeveloped worlds, must be afforded to women and women must be given other opportunities as well. In leveling the playing field between genders in less develoed nations, which means moving away from tradition, we will see a reduction in birth rate. This is where social justice comes into play. Social justice is eco justice.

Continiung to lament over-population as the main culprit is barking up one side of the tree. It is a willful ignorance of the actuality which is, simply, overconsumption, mostly by the western nations.

The first world, moving away from the tradition of

Your second paragraph contradicts your first.

The claim isn't that overpopulation isn't a factor. It's that lower birth rates are usually achieved through greater prosperity, but that in turn leads to more resource consumption.

Your two last paragraphs actually support my point but contradict the first two paragraphs of your message.

I've noticed that some doctrinaire Marxists (the Climate and Capitalism blog comes to mind) are stuck on the idea that there is and can never be any such thing as overpopulation. And many Marxists following rigid ideological arguments fall right in line with their thinking. They start spinning yarns about some of the globalists, like the Rockefellers, financing UN population control programs in the 60's and 70's, without giving any acknowledgement to the fact that, aside from a few liberal plutocrat do-gooders, most of them could care less about the Third World and their problems! The Koch Bros. and assorted libertarian hardliners who advance the careers of clowns like Ron Paul, are not concerned about famines in Africa. If they become overpopulated, they could care less, and many of them are candid enough to say so openly! They, like the Ron Paul supporters, are more inclined to be financing the religious rightwing movements that are trying to prevent women from having birth control and access to abortion, since they have adopted this wedge issue to keep religiously motivated rightwingers onside.

I would agree that individual carbon footprints are a larger problem than overpopulation, since birth rates in most areas of the world were declining to sustainable levels until right wing and religious fundamentalist forces combined to attack access to birth control. But, since even poor people need to eat, we can't just pretend that everything is fine with the present world population levels. We are only able to feed 7 billion people today thanks to oil-based agriculture, so a truly sustainable population level is going to be less than 2 billion people after all is said and done.

Yet the population of the US and other places that could have been on their way down to long term sustainable population, have their populations growing only from liberal policies of allowed immigration. Go to http://www.numbersusa.com to find out more on the real culprits behind US overpopulation. Also http://www.frostywooldridge.com and the Titanic parable and other articles.#2 horseman of the apocalypse(from page 1) keeps riding;October 6th, 2009'"They” say that if we eat fresh fruits and vegetables, we will get all of the vitamins and minerals that our bodies need, but "They" are extremely misinformed and out of touch with the new reality. Modern farming methods have caused massive soil depletion on the commercial farm acreage upon which we grow most of our food crops and cereal grains on. All of this has happened in less than one hundred years, but with the exception of some smaller farmers and home gardeners that practice sustainable farming, involving crop rotation and composting, this soil depletion is continuing unabated today.

When the Second World War ended, the drug and chemical conglomerates inherited huge amounts of nitrates and phosphates which had been used in the manufacturing of munitions during the war. The conglomerates knew from earlier experiences, that these minerals made very effective fertilizer. They then started to aggressively market these N (nitrogen) P (phosphorus) K (potassium) fertilizers to farmers at extremely affordable prices. This made the traditional organic methods of farming uneconomical, so that by the sixties, the majority of American farmers had become wholly dependent upon NPK products.

This system of farming was a tremendous success, creating lush and abundant crops, so much so, that the United States had the ability to feed the world, but our soil and the consumers have been paying a very steep price ever since. NPK products grow wonderful delicious looking vegetables that appear green and healthy at the supermarket, but we are not vegetables. To maintain good healthy bodies, we require 59 nutrients on a daily basis including 13 vitamins and 22 minerals. These supermarket vegetables are not overly nutritious. NPK products were never designed for human nutrition, so they do not contain more than 8 of these essential minerals. Yet all of these nutrients are vitally essential for our health and well-being.

As each successive crop was grown on soil loaded with NKP products, the soil slowly became depleted, so that now our vegetables are now mineral and vitamin bankrupt. A good example is spinach, in 1948: a bowl of spinach contained 150 mg of iron, now that same bowl contains 2 mg.

Then, as if that is not enough, all these vegetables go through processing before they are marketed. Processing removes a huge percentage of what vital minerals and nutrients are left. Removing grain husks, blanching, boiling, baking, steaming, bleaching and freezing all have the potential to remove nutritious aspects of our food. Then the produce is usually shipped thousand of mile to our localities so that even the freshness has disappeared as well.

And then as the last act in destroying all the goodness left in our food, we cook it, and throw the cooking water down the drain.

As an example, In a recent study to determine nutrient loss in potatoes over the last 50 years, it was discovered that the following losses occurred:

• 100% of Vitamin A• 57% of Vitamin C and Iron• 28% of Calcium• 50% of Riboflavin• 18% of Thiamine

Out of all of the nutrients analyzed only niacin levels actually did increase. The conclusion was very similar for 25 fruits and vegetables under the same test conditions. Broccoli had a huge reduction in which all nutrients had significantly declined, surprisingly including niacin.

These figures have been published in scientific journals in the UK including the British Food Journal.

We are what we eat!!

Food Groups

1992 Earth Summit Statistics

1992 Earth Summit Report* indicate that the mineral content of the world's farm and range land soil has decreased dramatically.

Percentage of Mineral Depletion From Soil During The Past 100 Years, By Continent:

* You may remember the 1992 Earth Summit by the fact that President Bush wouldn't sign any of the treaties.

** Some US farms are 100% depleted and some are 60% depleted, the average is 85% depletion as compared to 100 years ago. This is worse than in any other country in the world because of the extended use of fertilizers and "maximum yield" mass farming methods.Fertilizers Are The Problem, Not The Solution

According to research in animal husbandry and from The National Science Foundation, animals require at least: 45 minerals 12 essential amino acids 16 vitamins 3 essential fatty acids

According to Gary Price Todd, MD, the human body requires at least 60 minerals for optimal health and basically the same other essentials as animals.

But, only 8 minerals are available in any kind of quantity in most of the food we eat today. "At the loss of 1" per decade from 1910 to the 1992 report, half the soil was gone, now it is 2/3. Plus, looking at the fact that it takes nature from 700 to 1,200 years to make an inch of good farm soil under interglacial conditions in the best places. People have been using it up at 100 times its regeneration rate. The lost organics and micro-nutrients are all part of the depth and health of farm and range soils. There is much more to healthy soils besides the minerals and organics. Healthy soil is an ecosystem with fungi, worms, bacteria, and other organisms. Once artificial fertilizers are gone and soil reaches a critically low depth or health, plants for food just won't grow. Erosion, salinization from river irrigation, citification, and sterilization can be added to the depletion scenario. Back to page 1 (and aquifer depletion).

_________________"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

I've noticed that some doctrinaire Marxists (the Climate and Capitalism blog comes to mind) are stuck on the idea that there is and can never be any such thing as overpopulation. And many Marxists following rigid ideological arguments fall right in line with their thinking. They start spinning yarns about some of the globalists, like the Rockefellers, financing UN population control programs in the 60's and 70's, without giving any acknowledgement to the fact that, aside from a few liberal plutocrat do-gooders, most of them could care less about the Third World and their problems! The Koch Bros. and assorted libertarian hardliners who advance the careers of clowns like Ron Paul, are not concerned about famines in Africa. If they become overpopulated, they could care less, and many of them are candid enough to say so openly! They, like the Ron Paul supporters, are more inclined to be financing the religious rightwing movements that are trying to prevent women from having birth control and access to abortion, since they have adopted this wedge issue to keep religiously motivated rightwingers onside.

I would agree that individual carbon footprints are a larger problem than overpopulation, since birth rates in most areas of the world were declining to sustainable levels until right wing and religious fundamentalist forces combined to attack access to birth control. But, since even poor people need to eat, we can't just pretend that everything is fine with the present world population levels. We are only able to feed 7 billion people today thanks to oil-based agriculture, so a truly sustainable population level is going to be less than 2 billion people after all is said and done.

Overpopulation is a fact, and with that overconsumption. This is clearly seen in the ecological footprint info that I shared.

Population can be decreased by force, as seen in countries like China, or through increased prosperity, as seen in richer countries with lower birth rates. Unfortunately, population decrease by force may lead to other complications (as in the case of China), and increased prosperity may lead to resource consumption that offsets savings due to lower birth rates.

I believe that most poor people want to have fewer children, but they want to do so by having more opportunities for financial security, access to health care, utilities such as electricity, needs such as fresh water, etc. The bad news is that this will require even more resources.

With that, what should worry you aren't "doctrinaire Marxists" who think that there's no overpopulation problem but a capitalist middle class that thinks that overpopulation can be resolved easily by simply forcing most people who are poor not to have children, and assuming that the middle class will still be able to maintain its own lifestyle, perhaps imagining that it will be part of the "2 billion people."

Yet the population of the US and other places that could have been on their way down to long term sustainable population, have their populations growing only from liberal policies of allowed immigration. Go to http://www.numbersusa.com to find out more on the real culprits behind US overpopulation. Also http://www.frostywooldridge.com and the Titanic parable and other articles.#2 horseman of the apocalypse(from page 1) keeps riding;October 6th, 2009'"They” say that if we eat fresh fruits and vegetables, we will get all of the vitamins and minerals that our bodies need, but "They" are extremely misinformed and out of touch with the new reality. Modern farming methods have caused massive soil depletion on the commercial farm acreage upon which we grow most of our food crops and cereal grains on. All of this has happened in less than one hundred years, but with the exception of some smaller farmers and home gardeners that practice sustainable farming, involving crop rotation and composting, this soil depletion is continuing unabated today.

When the Second World War ended, the drug and chemical conglomerates inherited huge amounts of nitrates and phosphates which had been used in the manufacturing of munitions during the war. The conglomerates knew from earlier experiences, that these minerals made very effective fertilizer. They then started to aggressively market these N (nitrogen) P (phosphorus) K (potassium) fertilizers to farmers at extremely affordable prices. This made the traditional organic methods of farming uneconomical, so that by the sixties, the majority of American farmers had become wholly dependent upon NPK products.

This system of farming was a tremendous success, creating lush and abundant crops, so much so, that the United States had the ability to feed the world, but our soil and the consumers have been paying a very steep price ever since. NPK products grow wonderful delicious looking vegetables that appear green and healthy at the supermarket, but we are not vegetables. To maintain good healthy bodies, we require 59 nutrients on a daily basis including 13 vitamins and 22 minerals. These supermarket vegetables are not overly nutritious. NPK products were never designed for human nutrition, so they do not contain more than 8 of these essential minerals. Yet all of these nutrients are vitally essential for our health and well-being.

As each successive crop was grown on soil loaded with NKP products, the soil slowly became depleted, so that now our vegetables are now mineral and vitamin bankrupt. A good example is spinach, in 1948: a bowl of spinach contained 150 mg of iron, now that same bowl contains 2 mg.

Then, as if that is not enough, all these vegetables go through processing before they are marketed. Processing removes a huge percentage of what vital minerals and nutrients are left. Removing grain husks, blanching, boiling, baking, steaming, bleaching and freezing all have the potential to remove nutritious aspects of our food. Then the produce is usually shipped thousand of mile to our localities so that even the freshness has disappeared as well.

And then as the last act in destroying all the goodness left in our food, we cook it, and throw the cooking water down the drain.

As an example, In a recent study to determine nutrient loss in potatoes over the last 50 years, it was discovered that the following losses occurred:

• 100% of Vitamin A• 57% of Vitamin C and Iron• 28% of Calcium• 50% of Riboflavin• 18% of Thiamine

Out of all of the nutrients analyzed only niacin levels actually did increase. The conclusion was very similar for 25 fruits and vegetables under the same test conditions. Broccoli had a huge reduction in which all nutrients had significantly declined, surprisingly including niacin.

These figures have been published in scientific journals in the UK including the British Food Journal.

We are what we eat!!

Food Groups

1992 Earth Summit Statistics

1992 Earth Summit Report* indicate that the mineral content of the world's farm and range land soil has decreased dramatically.

Percentage of Mineral Depletion From Soil During The Past 100 Years, By Continent:

* You may remember the 1992 Earth Summit by the fact that President Bush wouldn't sign any of the treaties.

** Some US farms are 100% depleted and some are 60% depleted, the average is 85% depletion as compared to 100 years ago. This is worse than in any other country in the world because of the extended use of fertilizers and "maximum yield" mass farming methods.Fertilizers Are The Problem, Not The Solution

According to research in animal husbandry and from The National Science Foundation, animals require at least: 45 minerals 12 essential amino acids 16 vitamins 3 essential fatty acids

According to Gary Price Todd, MD, the human body requires at least 60 minerals for optimal health and basically the same other essentials as animals.

But, only 8 minerals are available in any kind of quantity in most of the food we eat today. "At the loss of 1" per decade from 1910 to the 1992 report, half the soil was gone, now it is 2/3. Plus, looking at the fact that it takes nature from 700 to 1,200 years to make an inch of good farm soil under interglacial conditions in the best places. People have been using it up at 100 times its regeneration rate. The lost organics and micro-nutrients are all part of the depth and health of farm and range soils. There is much more to healthy soils besides the minerals and organics. Healthy soil is an ecosystem with fungi, worms, bacteria, and other organisms. Once artificial fertilizers are gone and soil reaches a critically low depth or health, plants for food just won't grow. Erosion, salinization from river irrigation, citification, and sterilization can be added to the depletion scenario. Back to page 1 (and aquifer depletion).

The problem for the U.S. isn't just overpopulation but overconsumption. For example, it has less than 5 pct of the world's population but has to consume up to 25 pct of world oil production to support a middle class lifestyle. That includes up to half of that consumption to power up over 250 million passenger vehicles, or more than one car for each adult citizen, and very likely a significant proportion of total passenger vehicles worldwide. I very much doubt that "allowed policies of liberal immigration" has to do with this.

[quote: ralfy]The problem for the U.S. isn't just overpopulation but overconsumption. For example, it has less than 5 pct of the world's population but has to consume up to 25 pct of world oil production to support a middle class lifestyle. That includes up to half of that consumption to power up over 250 million passenger vehicles, or more than one car for each adult citizen, and very likely a significant proportion of total passenger vehicles worldwide. I very much doubt that "allowed policies of liberal immigration" has to do with this.[quote]If you go to numbersusa, you will find that ~90% of the past 100 million of US overpopulation has been from third world immigrants and their children and their children's children since 1970. In addition the US has over 30 million illegal aliens. All driving gas hogs, having big families as a tradition, wanting to take back the SW which was won by war, and succeeding through over-breeding, also their native per capita trash production was 66% higher than the US average. The US is now one of the highest populated countries, and per capita consumption has gone down, a little. CO2 emissions are well down, but still too much. With the high unemployment and huge debt, the US is really not a rich country anymore. Middle class in a world where than middle class is going downward toward poverty from overpopulation.You think that forcing people to a lower living standard and just using family planning hoopla is going to stop the crash, when mathematically it is too late to stop it. Consumption and pollution and population are tied together in a deadly knot. As population rises, so does consumption and pollution. That is until depletion of key resources, world depression from having a growth only economy, and a number of pollution effects get more lethal or lower food supplies along with depletion of soils, water, cheap oil, and fertilizers. Then people will consume less by these forces. They will localize agriculture, but the big unsustainable cities will starve and pour out gangs of cut throats. Governments will fail to pay their employees then stop functioning, with chaos ensuing. Country by country, region by region, with desperate environmental, and economic refugees pouring out thirsty and hungry, destroying more habitat and regions. Starvation, diseases, fighting all increasing as the temperature increases. Perhaps one tenth survive in more remote areas that can still grow food, but CAGW takes away one out of three crops, starving them, too. Other places have bad and insufficient water, with people dying of waterborne diseases and in fighting over that precious resource. The rich, with long term supplies have their employees turn on them, while others in 3000 year fortresses run out after AETM and whither.There is a lot of ifs and if onlys. The main thing is time to change ran out before most people changed. They waited dumbly until it was too late. They over-bred far into overshoot of their regional carrying capacity, without thinking of the future. Greed and selfishness ruled in one way or another. Basically people, in general, consciously or sub-consciously, are ecocidal maniacs.If everyone had gone to one child families, then low carbon lifestyles like I did, when I did it---humanity would have gone down in population, pollution and consumption enough to be sustainable at a worldwide acceptable standard of living. The young of today would not be facing a future of population crash horrors, and a distant future of thermageddon.Sure, the biosphere will eventually be back to the way it was(with bio-diversity and sequestered carbon) when one of the first technical achievements, the Folsom Point, started the present 6th Great Extinction. Several million years from now....

_________________"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

QUOTE"A remarkable feature of human population growth is the abundance ofpeople who deny that human numbers count. Across the spectrum ofpublic opinion, there is near unanimity that the notion of overpopulationis either a silly fantasy dreamed up by a few ecofkeaks or a temporaryphenomenon, affecting only a few places in the Thirdworld, andone that will dissipate of its own accord. In the latter case, incantationof the phrase "demographic transition"is usually thought sufficient todispel the specter.

Examples abound of the mental and moral Aiction that mightbest be christened the Overpopulation Denial Syndrome (ODS). Atthe time of the first Earth Day in 1970, for example, there was considerableconcern about population increase, partly due to the writings ofecologist Paul Ehrlich. Since then, the global population has shot upby 1.6 billion people (a 43 percent increase), yet on Earth Day 1990there was virtual silence on the subject.

The 1992 Earth Summit largely ignored population problems.Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, and most mainstream environmentalorganizations hardly address the issue. [The political parties],"green" onesincluded, are silent. None of the green lifestyle guides mention overpopulation,even though giving birth to children is the most significantenvironmental choice any couple makes"

_________________"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

If you go to numbersusa, you will find that ~90% of the past 100 million of US overpopulation has been from third world immigrants and their children and their children's children since 1970. In addition the US has over 30 million illegal aliens.

250,000 in the 1930s2.5 million in the 1950s4.5 million in the 1970s7.3 million in the 1980s10 million in the 1990s

Since 2000, legal immigrants to the US number approximately 1,000,000 per year, of whom about 600,000 who already are in the US change their status. Legal immigrants to the US now are at their highest level ever, at just over 37,000,000. Illegal immigration may account to 1,500,000 per year with at least 700,000 illegal immigrants arriving every year. From 1990 to 2000, immigration led to a 57.4% increase in foreign born population.

_________________With friends like Guido, you will not have enemies for long.

“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none” Arthur Schopenhauer

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."Albert Einstein

If you go to numbersusa, you will find that ~90% of the past 100 million of US overpopulation has been from third world immigrants and their children and their children's children since 1970. In addition the US has over 30 million illegal aliens. All driving gas hogs, having big families as a tradition, wanting to take back the SW which was won by war, and succeeding through over-breeding, also their native per capita trash production was 66% higher than the US average. The US is now one of the highest populated countries, and per capita consumption has gone down, a little. CO2 emissions are well down, but still too much. With the high unemployment and huge debt, the US is really not a rich country anymore. Middle class in a world where than middle class is going downward toward poverty from overpopulation.

Good points by Wayne concerning U.S. immigration.

I'd like to add that one sees similar consumption levels in other OECD countries, esp. Australia and Canada. As the "Age of Stupid" video points out, if the rest of the world were to follow the consumption rates of these three countries, then we'd need several more earths.

Worse, it's a phenomenon that cuts across different countries. In general, something like 15 pct of the world's population is responsible for around 70 pct of personal consumption.

Thus, even if we were to cut down the world's population to two billion, that population would still overshoot if its ave. ecological footprint were the same as that of the U.S.

Quote:

You think that forcing people to a lower living standard and just using family planning hoopla is going to stop the crash, when mathematically it is too late to stop it. Consumption and pollution and population are tied together in a deadly knot. As population rises, so does consumption and pollution.

The fact that you refer to family planning as "hoopla" says it all. I leave it at that.

My point is exactly that: consumption, pollution, and population are "tied together in a deadly knot." And that's because consumption doesn't simply rise because population does. It also rises because of the drive for a middle class lifestyle, and the U.S. is a good example of that, from passenger vehicle use to 40 pct of food wasted.

Quote:

That is until depletion of key resources, world depression from having a growth only economy, and a number of pollution effects get more lethal or lower food supplies along with depletion of soils, water, cheap oil, and fertilizers. Then people will consume less by these forces. They will localize agriculture, but the big unsustainable cities will starve and pour out gangs of cut throats. Governments will fail to pay their employees then stop functioning, with chaos ensuing. Country by country, region by region, with desperate environmental, and economic refugees pouring out thirsty and hungry, destroying more habitat and regions. Starvation, diseases, fighting all increasing as the temperature increases. Perhaps one tenth survive in more remote areas that can still grow food, but CAGW takes away one out of three crops, starving them, too. Other places have bad and insufficient water, with people dying of waterborne diseases and in fighting over that precious resource. The rich, with long term supplies have their employees turn on them, while others in 3000 year fortresses run out after AETM and whither.

Exactly my point! There will be no need to "force" people to lower living standards. It will happen due to a resource crunch, and the first thing that will go will be a middle class lifestyle. Depopulation will follow.

Quote:

There is a lot of ifs and if onlys. The main thing is time to change ran out before most people changed. They waited dumbly until it was too late. They over-bred far into overshoot of their regional carrying capacity, without thinking of the future. Greed and selfishness ruled in one way or another. Basically people, in general, consciously or sub-consciously, are ecocidal maniacs.If everyone had gone to one child families, then low carbon lifestyles like I did, when I did it---humanity would have gone down in population, pollution and consumption enough to be sustainable at a worldwide acceptable standard of living. The young of today would not be facing a future of population crash horrors, and a distant future of thermageddon.

Over-breeding has been around from the start, unless you think that national family planning policies have been implemented for centuries. The problem was that from the late nineteenth century onward, sanitation systems and improvements in health care led to a gradual increase in life expectancy rates coupled with lower infant mortality rates. These improved significantly after WW2 through the Green Revolution and other endeavors. That is why the global population doubled after that.

Family planning is "hoopla" indeed. Just as one-child family policies were practiced in China, countries like Singapore and others were encouraging citizens to have children in order to reverse the effects of population ageing. Meanwhile, consumption per capita increased as more became part of the middle class, ironically perhaps one of the main reasons why birth rates are lower in richer countries.

Thus, it wasn't simply greed but the very technologies leading to lower infant mortality rates and longer lifespans that contributed not only to overpopulation but also overconsumption.

QUOTE"A remarkable feature of human population growth is the abundance ofpeople who deny that human numbers count. Across the spectrum ofpublic opinion, there is near unanimity that the notion of overpopulationis either a silly fantasy dreamed up by a few ecofkeaks or a temporaryphenomenon, affecting only a few places in the Thirdworld, andone that will dissipate of its own accord. In the latter case, incantationof the phrase "demographic transition"is usually thought sufficient todispel the specter.

Examples abound of the mental and moral Aiction that mightbest be christened the Overpopulation Denial Syndrome (ODS). Atthe time of the first Earth Day in 1970, for example, there was considerableconcern about population increase, partly due to the writings ofecologist Paul Ehrlich. Since then, the global population has shot upby 1.6 billion people (a 43 percent increase), yet on Earth Day 1990there was virtual silence on the subject.

The 1992 Earth Summit largely ignored population problems.Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, and most mainstream environmentalorganizations hardly address the issue. [The political parties],"green" onesincluded, are silent. None of the green lifestyle guides mention overpopulation,even though giving birth to children is the most significantenvironmental choice any couple makes"

I think the problem isn't so much denial of overpopulation but not seeing connections between overpopulation, overconsumption, capitalism, and environmental damage. For example, as seen in the ff:

it appears that these organizations do not deny overpopulation. Rather, they claim that the main cause of increasing environmental damage is overconsumption. The reason why they are concerned is that according to this:

60 pct of private consumption spending involves only around 12 pct of the world's population, while the lower third of the world's population account for only 3.2 pct of the same.

Thus, even a global population decline of 30 pct will not decrease overall consumption considerably.

Given that, let us look at the the ff. points and figure out why some are intent on focusing on population growth:

1. Third World immigrants are implicitly to blame for overconsumption in the U.S., although it was shown that they likely make up a very small proportion of the population;

2. members of the middle class cannot be expected to lower their living standards;

3. the view that those who focus on overconsumption are "ecofreaks" and deny overpopulation.

Notice that the same arguments are given by Big Pharma and other corporate sponsors who want to see population control work in Third World countries. Is it because they want to see an overall reduction in resource consumption or because they want to see economic growth in the same countries, which ultimately leads to more resource consumption, and for them more sales? And since environmental damage and the idea of overconsumption can get in the way of goals for economic growth, might this also explain the reference to "ecofreaks"?